Digital Transformation
7 Business Benefits of Digital Transformation and How Agile Can Help Deliver Results Quickly
03 October 2017

This is a brief overview of digital transformation—including key steps, business benefits, and how agile can help deliver results quickly.
Digital transformation is about leveraging data and connectivity to change the way the business competes and adds value. Leaders who don’t seize this opportunity will see their organization's business value erode.
Digital transformation involves three key steps:
- Convert data to insight. Collect, analyze and make sense of historical and real-time data.
- Impart insight to action. Leverage the insight as an action within a business process or other application.
- Convert action to outcome. Invent new or reinvent existing business processes or models, creating a stronger value proposition.
Digital transformation may yield one or more of the following benefits for businesses:
- Reach ROI sooner
- Better products/services
- Faster time-to-market
- Less waste
- More profit
- Protect/secure market share
- Improved competitive advantage
Digital transformation is about revolutionizing the way business is done, and an agile approach can help teams adapt and deliver value quickly. That supports innovation and succeeding in a rapidly evolving world.
For those interested in agile, Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions provides an authoritative roadmap to easily and quickly implement Scrum, the most popular agile project management and delivery framework. It helps teams deliver products in short cycles with rapid adaptation to change, fast time-to-market, and continuous improvement―which drives competitive advantage. The book is available in paperback and ebook formats.


© Copyright 2017 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.

Using Bruce Tuckman's Phases of Team Development to Help Your Team Grow and Advance: 2021 Update
04 January 2021

🔥 Phases of Team Development content is updated periodically. The newest (2023) version is here.
2021 Update
Teams (agile or otherwise) go through phases of development, and Dr. Bruce Tuckman established a popular and durable framework on the subject. According to Dr. Tuckman, all phases—Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning—are necessary for teams to grow, tackle problems, find solutions, plan work, and deliver results.
Agile project management thought leader, influencer, and author Scott M. Graffius developed a related custom illustration, Phases of Team Development. It highlights the performance level, characteristics, and proven strategies for each of the phases. Project Managers, Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, DevOps Leads, and other professionals can apply the information to help handle challenges or issues experienced by teams. By doing so, they’ll advance the teams' happiness and productivity, as well as the teams' (and their own) success. Graffius updates the content periodically.
He released an updated version of the visual on January 4, 2021. This article features the new version of the Phases of Team Development illustration. Read on for details including information on permission requests and downloadable high-resolution versions of the visual.

Five Phases of Team Development

1. Forming
Characteristics of Forming include displaying eagerness, socializing, generally polite tone, sticking to safe topics, being unclear about how one fits in, and some anxiety and questioning.
Strategies for this phase include taking the ‘lead,’ being highly visible, facilitating introductions, providing the ‘big picture,’ establishing clear expectations, communicating success criteria, and ensuring that response times are quick.
2. Storming
Traits of Storming include resistance, lack of participation, conflict related to differences of feelings and opinions, competition, high emotions, and starting to move towards group norms.
Strategies for this phase include requesting and encouraging feedback, identifying issues and facilitating their resolution, normalizing matters, and building trust by honoring commitments.
3. Norming
Features of Norming include an improved sense of purpose and understanding of goals, higher confidence, improved commitment, team members are engaged and supportive, relief—lowered anxiety, and starting to develop cohesion.
Strategies for this phase include recognizing individual and team efforts, proving opportunities for learning and feedback, and monitoring the ‘energy’ of the team.
4. Performing
Characteristics of Performing include higher motivation, elevated trust and empathy, individuals typically deferring to the team's needs, effective production, consistent performance, and demonstrations of interdependence and self-management (also referred to as self-organization).
Strategies for this phase include ‘guiding from the side’ (minimal intervention), celebrating successes, and encouraging collective decision-making and problem-solving.
5. Adjourning
Typical traits of Adjourning (also referred to as Transitioning or Mourning) include a shift to process orientation, sadness, recognition of team and individual efforts, and disbanding.
Strategies for this phase include recognizing change, providing an opportunity for summative team evaluations (which may go by ‘lessons learned,’ post-project review, retrospective, or another label), providing an opportunity for individual acknowledgments, and celebrating the team's accomplishments—which may involve a party and possibly an ‘after-party.’

As shown, performance fluctuates as teams move through the phases. Review the characteristics to help identify the team's current phase, then apply the corresponding proven strategies to help them advance.

Permission Requests and Downloadable High-Resolution Versions of 'Phases of Team Development' Illustration
🔥 Phases of Team Development content is updated periodically. The newest (2023) version is here.

Bibliography
Select list of publications
- Alford, J. (2019, April 11). Our Co-Production Journey: From Sandpits to Bird Boxes. London, United Kingdom: Imperial College London.
- Bennett, M., Gadlin, H., & Marchand, C. (2018). Collaboration Team Science: Field Guide. Rockville, MD: National Institutes of Health.
- Couture, N. (2016, October 27). A Note About Teams. CIO. Boston, MA: International Data Group (IDG).
- Daly, L. (2002). Identify Your Project Management Team’s Level of Development and Facilitate It to Success. Paper presented at Project Management Institute Annual Seminars and Symposium, San Antonio, TX. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
- Deloitte (2017). Digital Era Technology Operating Models, Volume 2. New York, NY: Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited.
- Finkelstein, S. (2017, October 29). Why Companies Should Hire Teams, Not Individuals. The Wall Street Journal. New York, NY: The Wall Street Journal.
- Forbes (2018, April 23). How to Fast-Track Any Team to Success. Forbes. New York, NY: Forbes.
- Forbes (2012, October 27). How the iPad Mini is Defining Tim Cook’s Apple. Forbes. New York, NY: Forbes.
- Glover, P. (2012, March 13). Team Conflict: Why It’s a Good Thing. Fast Company. New York, NY: Mansueto Ventures.
- Graffius, Scott M. (2021). Phases of Team Development. Los Angeles, CA: Scott M. Graffius. Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.13140/RG.2.2.22040.42246.
- Jovanovic, M., Mesquida, A., Radaković, N., & Mas, A. (2016). Agile Retrospective Games for Different Team Development Phases. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 22: 1489-1508.
- Kane, G. C. (2014, October 7). Why Your Company is Probably Measuring Social Media Wrong. MIT Sloan Management Review. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan Management Review.
- KPMG (2017). The Digital Fund, Season 2. Amstelveen, Netherlands: KPMG International.
- Madden, D. (2019, May 19). The Four Stages of Building a Great Team – and the One Where Things Usually Go Wrong. Inc. Magazine. New York, NY: Inc. Magazine.
- Makar, A. (2011, July 13). Lessons Learned in Norming and Performing Team Development Phases. Louisville, KY: TechRepublic.
- Martinuzzi, B. (2012, June 8). Six Tips Guaranteed to Reduce Workplace Frustrations. New York, NY: American Express Company.
- Microsoft (2019, June 15). Is the Latest Technology the Key to Your Team’s Success, or is There Something Else? Microsoft Developer Support. Accessed at: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/premier-developer/is-the-latest-technology-the-key-to-your-teams-success-or-is-there-something-else. Redmond, WA: Microsoft.
- Mocko, G., & Linnerud, B. (2016). Measuring the Effects of Goal Alignment on Innovative Engineering Design Projects. International Journal of Engineering Education, 32: 55-63.
- Romanelli, M. (2019, September 11). Teamwork Accelerated. PM Times. Newmarket, Ontario, Canada: Macgregor Communications.
- Riggs, A. (2020, October 15). Why I Start All My Video Meetings with Collaborative Games (Spoiler: It’s Not Boredom). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: The Next Web (TNW).
- Rowley, D., & Lange, M. (2007). Forming to Performing: The Evolution of an Agile Team. IEEE Computer Society Proceedings. Agile 2007, 1: 408-414.
- Scrum Alliance (2020). Learning Objectives Examples. Denver, CO: Scrum Alliance.
- Sakpal, M. (2020, March 3. Learn How to Debunk These Five Restructuring Myths. Stamford, CT: Gartner, Inc.
- Stern, S. (2018, September 26). Is Your Team Working the Rory Underwood Way? Financial Times. London, United Kingdom: The Financial Times, a Nikkei Company.
- Telford, R. (2013, June 4). This is Where It Gets Interesting. Armonk, NY: International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation.
- Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental Sequence in Small Groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63: 384-399.
- Tuckman, B. W., & Jensen, M. A. C. (1977). Stages of Small-Group Development Revisited. Group and Organizational Studies, 2 (4): 419-427.
- United States Army (2015). Innovative Learning: A Key to National Security. Washington, DC: Uni


About Scott M. Graffius

Scot founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books (Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions and Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change), workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available at https://www.scottgraffius.com.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
- Implement and use the most popular agile framework―Scrum;
- Deliver products in short cycles with rapid adaptation to change, fast time-to-market, and continuous improvement; and
- Support innovation and drive competitive advantage.
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇭🇺 Hungary
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇮🇱 Israel
- 🇮🇹 Italy
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇳🇴 Norway
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 UAE
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇦🇺 Australia
- 🇦🇹 Austria
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

The short URL for this article is: bit.ly/teams-21
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.

Publication of Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute Features Content from Scott M. Graffius
10 June 2021
Follow @scottgraffius

A publication of the Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute (APH) features content from Scott M. Graffius. The APH Quality Handbook includes Graffius's copyrighted (used with permission) illustration, Phases of Team Development. The visual conveys strategies and more which can be readily applied to help teams (research and otherwise) go farther, faster.




About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over one billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books, workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Scott M. Graffius’s Phases of Team Development Illustration
Teams go through phases of development, and Bruce Wayne Tuckman established a popular framework on the subject. According to Tuckman, all five phases—Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning—are necessary for teams to grow, tackle problems, find solutions, plan work, and deliver results. Scott M. Graffius developed a related custom illustration, Phases of Team Development, which he revises periodically. The newest version is here.

About the Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute
The Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute’s (APH for short) mission is “Health for all, powered by science.”
The APH’s strategic plan exudes its credo to continuously produce knowledge in line with societal challenges, healthcare transformations and shifting expectations of civilians, and to effectively harness this knowledge for the public health practice and elsewhere.
The APH considers strong ties between research, practice, and education as crucial conditions for an effective translation of public health research to the society. With its partners inside and outside of the academic world the APH stimulates state-of-the-art research that contributes to the ever-growing health potential of individuals and communities across the life course. This is embedded within its mission: Health for all, powered by science.
To tackle complex public health challenges, the APH concentrates its research efforts in eight research programs with over 1,700 multidisciplinary researchers from Amsterdam University Medical Centers (Amsterdam UMC), VU Amsterdam (also known as The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), and the University of Amsterdam. By teaming up with other researchers, citizen communities, health care providers, educators, and policy-makers, the APH’s focus for the coming years will be on implementation and dissemination of knowledge in and outside Amsterdam.
For more on the APH, visit its website at https://www.amsterdamumc.org/research/institutes/amsterdam-public-health.htm.

About the APH Quality Handbook
The Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute’s APH Quality Handbook, a vibrant source of information for researchers, was introduced in 2003. The body of work was subsequently expanded and updated to incorporate new values, principles, norms, and practices. Under the guidance of the APH Scientific Quality Committee and its project leader, Seta Jahfari, and with the help of volunteers, content was recently revamped. The updated version of the handbook was released on June 10, 2021. It’s available online at https://aph-qualityhandbook.org.

The short URL link for this article is: bit.ly/aph-qh.
A related post on LinkedIn is at: bit.ly/wow-7.
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.


A publication of the Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute (APH) features content from Scott M. Graffius. The APH Quality Handbook includes Graffius's copyrighted (used with permission) illustration, Phases of Team Development. The visual conveys strategies and more which can be readily applied to help teams (research and otherwise) go farther, faster.

Above: Screen shot view 1 of 3

Above: Screen shot view 2 of 3

Above: Screen shot view 3 of 3

About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over one billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books, workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Scott M. Graffius’s Phases of Team Development Illustration
Teams go through phases of development, and Bruce Wayne Tuckman established a popular framework on the subject. According to Tuckman, all five phases—Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning—are necessary for teams to grow, tackle problems, find solutions, plan work, and deliver results. Scott M. Graffius developed a related custom illustration, Phases of Team Development, which he revises periodically. The newest version is here.

About the Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute
The Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute’s (APH for short) mission is “Health for all, powered by science.”
The APH’s strategic plan exudes its credo to continuously produce knowledge in line with societal challenges, healthcare transformations and shifting expectations of civilians, and to effectively harness this knowledge for the public health practice and elsewhere.
The APH considers strong ties between research, practice, and education as crucial conditions for an effective translation of public health research to the society. With its partners inside and outside of the academic world the APH stimulates state-of-the-art research that contributes to the ever-growing health potential of individuals and communities across the life course. This is embedded within its mission: Health for all, powered by science.
To tackle complex public health challenges, the APH concentrates its research efforts in eight research programs with over 1,700 multidisciplinary researchers from Amsterdam University Medical Centers (Amsterdam UMC), VU Amsterdam (also known as The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), and the University of Amsterdam. By teaming up with other researchers, citizen communities, health care providers, educators, and policy-makers, the APH’s focus for the coming years will be on implementation and dissemination of knowledge in and outside Amsterdam.
For more on the APH, visit its website at https://www.amsterdamumc.org/research/institutes/amsterdam-public-health.htm.

About the APH Quality Handbook
The Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute’s APH Quality Handbook, a vibrant source of information for researchers, was introduced in 2003. The body of work was subsequently expanded and updated to incorporate new values, principles, norms, and practices. Under the guidance of the APH Scientific Quality Committee and its project leader, Seta Jahfari, and with the help of volunteers, content was recently revamped. The updated version of the handbook was released on June 10, 2021. It’s available online at https://aph-qualityhandbook.org.

The short URL link for this article is: bit.ly/aph-qh.
A related post on LinkedIn is at: bit.ly/wow-7.
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.

Scott M. Graffius Speaking at IEEE Event
21 July 2021
Follow @scottgraffius

Scott M. Graffius will deliver "Navigate the Phases of Team Development with Speed and Agility for Happier and More Productive Teams" to an audience of engineering, computing, and technology professionals at an event of the IEEE. Scott's talk will be livestreamed on Tuesday, October 5, 2021 ("IEEE Day 2021"), from 2:00-3:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The IEEE-USA event is free of charge.
Attendees may be eligible to receive continuing education unit (CEU) credit, equivalent to 1.00 Professional Development Hour (PDH). For reporting with the Project Management Institute (PMI), it's 1.00 Professional Development Unit (PDU), under the Leadership category. For reporting with the Scrum Alliance, it's 1.00 Scrum Educational Unit (SEU), under either the Learning category or the Events category. For reporting with other organizations, refer to their respective instructions.
For more information and to register for the event, visit https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/277932.


About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over one billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books (Agile Scrum and Agile Transformation), workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.

About the IEEE
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers — commonly referred to by the letters I-E-E-E (pronounced I-triple-E) — is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.
IEEE and its members inspire a global community to innovate for a better tomorrow through its more than 400,000 members in over 160 countries, and its highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities. IEEE is the trusted “voice” for engineering, computing, and technology information around the globe.
For more information on the IEEE, visit its website at https://www.ieee.org.

About the IEEE-USA
IEEE-USA serves the careers and public policy interests of 150,000+ engineering, computing, and technology professionals who are U.S. members of IEEE. For more information on the IEEE-USA, visit the organization’s website at https://ieeeusa.org.


The short URL for this blog post is: bit.ly/ieeeusa
The short URL for a related LinkedIn post is: bit.ly/ieee-li
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.


Scott M. Graffius will deliver "Navigate the Phases of Team Development with Speed and Agility for Happier and More Productive Teams" to an audience of engineering, computing, and technology professionals at an event of the IEEE. Scott's talk will be livestreamed on Tuesday, October 5, 2021 ("IEEE Day 2021"), from 2:00-3:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The IEEE-USA event is free of charge.
Attendees may be eligible to receive continuing education unit (CEU) credit, equivalent to 1.00 Professional Development Hour (PDH). For reporting with the Project Management Institute (PMI), it's 1.00 Professional Development Unit (PDU), under the Leadership category. For reporting with the Scrum Alliance, it's 1.00 Scrum Educational Unit (SEU), under either the Learning category or the Events category. For reporting with other organizations, refer to their respective instructions.
For more information and to register for the event, visit https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/277932.


About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over one billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books (Agile Scrum and Agile Transformation), workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
- Implement and use the most popular agile framework―Scrum;
- Deliver products in short cycles with rapid adaptation to change, fast time-to-market, and continuous improvement; and
- Support innovation and drive competitive advantage.
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇭🇺 Hungary
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇮🇱 Israel
- 🇮🇹 Italy
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇳🇴 Norway
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 UAE
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇦🇺 Australia
- 🇦🇹 Austria
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

About the IEEE
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers — commonly referred to by the letters I-E-E-E (pronounced I-triple-E) — is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.
IEEE and its members inspire a global community to innovate for a better tomorrow through its more than 400,000 members in over 160 countries, and its highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities. IEEE is the trusted “voice” for engineering, computing, and technology information around the globe.
For more information on the IEEE, visit its website at https://www.ieee.org.

About the IEEE-USA
IEEE-USA serves the careers and public policy interests of 150,000+ engineering, computing, and technology professionals who are U.S. members of IEEE. For more information on the IEEE-USA, visit the organization’s website at https://ieeeusa.org.


The short URL for this blog post is: bit.ly/ieeeusa
The short URL for a related LinkedIn post is: bit.ly/ieee-li
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.

Scott M. Graffius Delivering a Talk at BSides Newcastle England 2021 InfoSec Conference
19 August 2021
Follow @scottgraffius

Scott M. Graffius will present “Navigate the Phases of Team Development with Speed and Agility for Happier and More Productive InfoSec Teams” to an audience of Technology Information Security professionals at the BSides Newcastle 2021 Conference. Scott will deliver his talk on Saturday, September 11th, from 4:00-5:10 p.m. British Time (8:00-9:10 a.m. Pacific Time).
Attendees may be eligible to receive continuing education unit (CEU) credit, equivalent to 1.25 Professional Development Hour (PDHs). For reporting with the Project Management Institute (PMI), it's 1.25 Professional Development Units (PDUs), under the Leadership category. For reporting with the Scrum Alliance, it's 1.25 Scrum Educational Units (SEUs), under either the Learning category or the Events category. For reporting with other organizations, refer to their respective instructions.
Secure your tickets for the conference from Eventbrite.

About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over one billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books (Agile Scrum and Agile Transformation), workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.

About BSides Newcastle (BSides NCL)

Logo for BSides NCL Conference (Property of BSides NCL)
What’s “the weirdest InfoSec event out there?” According to the organizers of BSides NCL, it’s their conference. The inaugural session of the Technology Information Security (InfoSec) event was held in 2019 in a skate park in Newcastle, England. In 2020, the event was virtual. In 2021, the cyber security event will be hybrid—in-person and virtual—and run from Friday, September 10th through Saturday, September 11th. The in-person meetup will be conducted at The Catalyst and those attending virtually will participate via Gather.
To learn more about the conference, visit https://bsidesnewcastle.org and follow it on Twitter at @BSidesNCL.
Tickets are available at Eventbrite.

About The Catalyst Newcastle

The Catalyst Newcastle on June 1, 2020 (Photo by Sam Barnwell Photography; image used under license, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The Catalyst is located in the centre of Newcastle, England. The home to the National Innovation Centre for Data, it brings together businesses, academia, technology, and science. The Catalyst encourages collaborative innovation and provides a supportive ecosystem for businesses to grow and develop new ideas, products, and services, alongside world-leading thinkers and creatives.
To learn more, visit https://www.thecatalystnewcastle.co.uk. Follow it on Twitter at @TheCatalystUK.

The short URL for this blog post is: https://bit.ly/ncl-blg
The short URL for a related LinkedIn post is: https://bit.ly/ncl-lin
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.


Scott M. Graffius will present “Navigate the Phases of Team Development with Speed and Agility for Happier and More Productive InfoSec Teams” to an audience of Technology Information Security professionals at the BSides Newcastle 2021 Conference. Scott will deliver his talk on Saturday, September 11th, from 4:00-5:10 p.m. British Time (8:00-9:10 a.m. Pacific Time).
Attendees may be eligible to receive continuing education unit (CEU) credit, equivalent to 1.25 Professional Development Hour (PDHs). For reporting with the Project Management Institute (PMI), it's 1.25 Professional Development Units (PDUs), under the Leadership category. For reporting with the Scrum Alliance, it's 1.25 Scrum Educational Units (SEUs), under either the Learning category or the Events category. For reporting with other organizations, refer to their respective instructions.
Secure your tickets for the conference from Eventbrite.

About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over one billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books (Agile Scrum and Agile Transformation), workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
- Implement and use the most popular agile framework―Scrum;
- Deliver products in short cycles with rapid adaptation to change, fast time-to-market, and continuous improvement; and
- Support innovation and drive competitive advantage.
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇭🇺 Hungary
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇮🇱 Israel
- 🇮🇹 Italy
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇳🇴 Norway
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 UAE
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇦🇺 Australia
- 🇦🇹 Austria
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

About BSides Newcastle (BSides NCL)

Logo for BSides NCL Conference (Property of BSides NCL)
What’s “the weirdest InfoSec event out there?” According to the organizers of BSides NCL, it’s their conference. The inaugural session of the Technology Information Security (InfoSec) event was held in 2019 in a skate park in Newcastle, England. In 2020, the event was virtual. In 2021, the cyber security event will be hybrid—in-person and virtual—and run from Friday, September 10th through Saturday, September 11th. The in-person meetup will be conducted at The Catalyst and those attending virtually will participate via Gather.
To learn more about the conference, visit https://bsidesnewcastle.org and follow it on Twitter at @BSidesNCL.
Tickets are available at Eventbrite.

About The Catalyst Newcastle

The Catalyst Newcastle on June 1, 2020 (Photo by Sam Barnwell Photography; image used under license, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The Catalyst is located in the centre of Newcastle, England. The home to the National Innovation Centre for Data, it brings together businesses, academia, technology, and science. The Catalyst encourages collaborative innovation and provides a supportive ecosystem for businesses to grow and develop new ideas, products, and services, alongside world-leading thinkers and creatives.
To learn more, visit https://www.thecatalystnewcastle.co.uk. Follow it on Twitter at @TheCatalystUK.

The short URL for this blog post is: https://bit.ly/ncl-blg
The short URL for a related LinkedIn post is: https://bit.ly/ncl-lin
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.

Scott M. Graffius Delivering a Talk at DevOps Experience 2021 Conference
05 October 2021
Follow @scottgraffius

🔥 Update: The DevOps Experience 2021 conference recorded sessions and made the videos available. The video for Scott's session is included at the end of this post.
Scott M. Graffius will be speaking at the DevOps Experience 2021 Conference. Now in its 4th year, the conference will explore the role DevOps will play in the "roaring 2020s". This year, speakers and attendees will interact virtually. Scott will present “The Journey to Happier and More Productive DevOps Teams.” His session will air at:

Attendees may be eligible to receivntinuing education unit (CEU) credit, equivalent to 0.75 Professional Development Hour (PDH). For reporting with the Project Management Institute (PMI), it's 0.75 Professional Development Unit (PDU), under the Leadership category. For reporting with the Scrum Alliance, it's 0.75 Scrum Educational Unit (SEU), under either the Learning category or the Events category. For reporting with other organizations, refer to their respective instructions.
To learn more and to secure tickets for the conference, visit https://www.techstrongevents.com/devopsexperience.

About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over one billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books (Agile Scrum and Agile Transformation), workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.

About the DevOps Experience Conference
The following includes content from the conference website:
As we stand poised to move beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, we are on the edge of what could be a giant leap forward. The world has come to see and recognize the power of digital transformation. Digital transformation is driven by software, and software is accelerated by DevOps. Cloud native computing has served as a catalyst to the DevOps, software, and digital transformation cycle. Now after perhaps 4-7 years worth of digital transformation progress compressed into the last 18 months concurrent with the pandemic, and with favorable capital markets and business outlook on the horizon, we are poised for a generational leap forward.
As we look forward to all of the great things this transformation enables, we also have to be ready to tackle tough problems like cybersecurity threats, future pandemics, and more. DevOps can be a powerful force for change in all of this. In its 4th year, this year's DevOps Experience will explore how DevOps will be a major factor in the "roaring 2020s."
To learn more about the DevOps Experience 2021 Conference, visit https://www.techstrongevents.com/devopsexperience.


Update on October 28, 2021
If you missed the event, recordings of sessions are now available. Scott's talk is at https://player.vimeo.com/video/637145697 and the video is also shown below.

The short link for this blog post is: https://bit.ly/doe-21
The short link for a related post on LinkedIn is: https://bit.ly/in-doe
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.


🔥 Update: The DevOps Experience 2021 conference recorded sessions and made the videos available. The video for Scott's session is included at the end of this post.
Scott M. Graffius will be speaking at the DevOps Experience 2021 Conference. Now in its 4th year, the conference will explore the role DevOps will play in the "roaring 2020s". This year, speakers and attendees will interact virtually. Scott will present “The Journey to Happier and More Productive DevOps Teams.” His session will air at:
- Pacific Time: 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on 28 October
- Eastern Time: 2:45 to 3:30 p.m. on 28 October
- Central European Time: 8:45 to 9:30 p.m. on 28 October
- Australian Eastern Time: 5:45 to 6:30 a.m. on 29 October

Attendees may be eligible to receivntinuing education unit (CEU) credit, equivalent to 0.75 Professional Development Hour (PDH). For reporting with the Project Management Institute (PMI), it's 0.75 Professional Development Unit (PDU), under the Leadership category. For reporting with the Scrum Alliance, it's 0.75 Scrum Educational Unit (SEU), under either the Learning category or the Events category. For reporting with other organizations, refer to their respective instructions.
To learn more and to secure tickets for the conference, visit https://www.techstrongevents.com/devopsexperience.

About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over one billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the founder, CEO, and principal consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™, based in Los Angeles, California. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books (Agile Scrum and Agile Transformation), workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, governments, and universities including Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, Oracle, Cisco, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Bayer, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Energy, the United States Army, Project Management Institute, the IEEE, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, Loughborough University London, and others. Graffius has spoken at 58 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
- Implement and use the most popular agile framework―Scrum;
- Deliver products in short cycles with rapid adaptation to change, fast time-to-market, and continuous improvement; and
- Support innovation and drive competitive advantage.
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇭🇺 Hungary
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇮🇱 Israel
- 🇮🇹 Italy
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇳🇴 Norway
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 UAE
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇦🇺 Australia
- 🇦🇹 Austria
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

About the DevOps Experience Conference
The following includes content from the conference website:
As we stand poised to move beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, we are on the edge of what could be a giant leap forward. The world has come to see and recognize the power of digital transformation. Digital transformation is driven by software, and software is accelerated by DevOps. Cloud native computing has served as a catalyst to the DevOps, software, and digital transformation cycle. Now after perhaps 4-7 years worth of digital transformation progress compressed into the last 18 months concurrent with the pandemic, and with favorable capital markets and business outlook on the horizon, we are poised for a generational leap forward.
As we look forward to all of the great things this transformation enables, we also have to be ready to tackle tough problems like cybersecurity threats, future pandemics, and more. DevOps can be a powerful force for change in all of this. In its 4th year, this year's DevOps Experience will explore how DevOps will be a major factor in the "roaring 2020s."
To learn more about the DevOps Experience 2021 Conference, visit https://www.techstrongevents.com/devopsexperience.


Update on October 28, 2021
If you missed the event, recordings of sessions are now available. Scott's talk is at https://player.vimeo.com/video/637145697 and the video is also shown below.

The short link for this blog post is: https://bit.ly/doe-21
The short link for a related post on LinkedIn is: https://bit.ly/in-doe
© Copyright 2021 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.

Use the Phases of Team Development (Based on Bruce W. Tuckman's Model of Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning) to Help Teams Grow and Advance: 2022 Update
14 February 2022
BY SCOTT M. GRAFFIUS | ScottGraffius.com

🔥 Phases of Team Development content is updated periodically. The newest (2023) version is here.
Click here to download this article as a PDF.
For permission requests and high resolution versions of the Phases of Team Development image, see below.
2022 Update
Want happier and more productive teams? Among other things, it takes great leadership. And proven strategies can provide a real edge! That’s where the groundbreaking work by Bruce W. Tuckman — Ph.D. in Psychology from Princeton — comes in.
Tuckman conducted extensive research on group dynamics, and he published a related model in 1965. At that time, the model included four phases: forming, storming, norming, and performing. However, Dr. Tuckman subsequently determined that adjourning was so important that he, with Mary Ann Jensen, updated his model in 1977 to add adjourning as the fifth phase. According to Tuckman, all five phases — Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning — are necessary for teams to grow, tackle problems, find solutions, plan work, and deliver results.
Tuckman’s model has stood the test of time because it remains highly relevant and beneficial. Since his work was published, it has been supported by additional peer-reviewed research. And it has received recommendations and coverage from leading organizations including Google, Harvard Business Review, IEEE, MIT, Fast Company, NASA, Microsoft, TNW, Project Management Institute, Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, Gartner, CIO, RAND Corporation, Software Engineering Institute, University of Edinburgh, Cisco, KPMG, Warsaw University of Technology, Software Engineering Institute, DevOps Institute, American Express, SANS Institute, Zurich University, SAP, ViacomCBS, Oxford University, American Management Association, AT&T, University of Southern California, IBM, and many others.
Agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, international speaker, thought leader, and influencer Scott M. Graffius developed a related custom illustration, Phases of Team Development. It highlights the performance level, characteristics, and proven strategies for each of the five phases. Project Managers, Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, DevOps Leads, and other professionals can apply the information to help handle challenges or issues experienced by teams. By doing so, they’ll advance the teams' happiness, productivity, and success.
Graffius updates the content periodically. He released an updated version of the visual on February 14, 2022. This article features the newest version of the Phases of Team Development illustration. Read on for details including information on permission requests and downloadable high-resolution versions of the image.

Five Phases of Team Development
1. Forming
Characteristics of Forming include displaying eagerness, socializing, generally polite tone, sticking to safe topics, unclear about how one fits in, and some anxiety and questioning.
Strategies for this phase include taking the ‘lead,’ being highly visible, facilitating introductions, providing the ‘big picture,’ establishing clear expectations, communicating success criteria, and ensuring response times are quick.
2. Storming
Traits of Storming include some resistance, lack of participation, conflict based on differences of opinions, competition, and high emotions.
Strategies for this phase include requesting and encouraging feedback, identifying issues and facilitating their resolution, normalizing matters, and building trust by honoring commitments.
3. Norming
Features of Norming include purpose and goals are well-understood, more confident, improved commitment, members are engaged and supportive, relief (lowered anxiety), and developing cohesion.
Strategies for this phase include recognizing individual and team efforts, providing learning opportunities and feedback, and monitoring the ‘energy’ of the team.
4. Performing
Characteristics of Performing include high motivation, trust, and empathy; individuals defer to team needs; effectively producing deliverables; consistent performance; and demonstrations of interdependence and self-management.
Strategies for this phase include ‘guiding from the side’ (minimal intervention), celebrating successes, and encouraging collective decision-making and problem-solving.
5. Adjourning
Typical traits of Adjourning (also referred to as Transitioning or Mourning) include potential sadness, recognition of team and individual efforts, and disbanding.
Strategies for this phase include recognizing change, providing an opportunity for summative team evaluations ('lessons learned'), providing an opportunity for individual acknowledgments, and celebrating the team’s accomplishments — which may involve a party and possibly an after-party.

As shown, performance fluctuates as teams move through the phases. Review the characteristics to help identify the team's current phase, then apply the corresponding proven strategies to help them advance.

Permission Requests and Downloadable High-Resolution Versions of 'Phases of Team Development' Illustration
To request permission to use the 'Phases of Team Development' visual, contact Scott M. Graffius. If approved, high resolution JPG and PNG image files will be provided, subject to terms and conditions.
Citation: Graffius, Scott M. (2022). Phases of Team Development. Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.13140/RG.2.2.19112.85766. DOI link: https://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.19112.85766.

Bibliography
Select (partial) list of publications


About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, multi award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over 1.75 billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the CEO and Principal Consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books, workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, professional associations, governments, and universities including Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Gartner, Deloitte, Project Management Institute, IEEE, SANS Institute, U.S. Soccer Federation, English Institute of Sport, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Wrike, Bayer, National Academy of Sciences, United States Department of Energy, United States Army, New Zealand Ministry of Education, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, National University of Ireland Galway, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, and others. Graffius has spoken at 67 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.

This story was simultaneously published here and at:
The short URL for this article is: https://bit.ly/teams-2022
© Copyright 2022 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.


🔥 Phases of Team Development content is updated periodically. The newest (2023) version is here.
Click here to download this article as a PDF.
For permission requests and high resolution versions of the Phases of Team Development image, see below.
2022 Update
Want happier and more productive teams? Among other things, it takes great leadership. And proven strategies can provide a real edge! That’s where the groundbreaking work by Bruce W. Tuckman — Ph.D. in Psychology from Princeton — comes in.
Tuckman conducted extensive research on group dynamics, and he published a related model in 1965. At that time, the model included four phases: forming, storming, norming, and performing. However, Dr. Tuckman subsequently determined that adjourning was so important that he, with Mary Ann Jensen, updated his model in 1977 to add adjourning as the fifth phase. According to Tuckman, all five phases — Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning — are necessary for teams to grow, tackle problems, find solutions, plan work, and deliver results.
Tuckman’s model has stood the test of time because it remains highly relevant and beneficial. Since his work was published, it has been supported by additional peer-reviewed research. And it has received recommendations and coverage from leading organizations including Google, Harvard Business Review, IEEE, MIT, Fast Company, NASA, Microsoft, TNW, Project Management Institute, Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, Gartner, CIO, RAND Corporation, Software Engineering Institute, University of Edinburgh, Cisco, KPMG, Warsaw University of Technology, Software Engineering Institute, DevOps Institute, American Express, SANS Institute, Zurich University, SAP, ViacomCBS, Oxford University, American Management Association, AT&T, University of Southern California, IBM, and many others.
Agile project management practitioner, consultant, award-winning author, international speaker, thought leader, and influencer Scott M. Graffius developed a related custom illustration, Phases of Team Development. It highlights the performance level, characteristics, and proven strategies for each of the five phases. Project Managers, Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, DevOps Leads, and other professionals can apply the information to help handle challenges or issues experienced by teams. By doing so, they’ll advance the teams' happiness, productivity, and success.
Graffius updates the content periodically. He released an updated version of the visual on February 14, 2022. This article features the newest version of the Phases of Team Development illustration. Read on for details including information on permission requests and downloadable high-resolution versions of the image.

Five Phases of Team Development
1. Forming
Characteristics of Forming include displaying eagerness, socializing, generally polite tone, sticking to safe topics, unclear about how one fits in, and some anxiety and questioning.
Strategies for this phase include taking the ‘lead,’ being highly visible, facilitating introductions, providing the ‘big picture,’ establishing clear expectations, communicating success criteria, and ensuring response times are quick.
2. Storming
Traits of Storming include some resistance, lack of participation, conflict based on differences of opinions, competition, and high emotions.
Strategies for this phase include requesting and encouraging feedback, identifying issues and facilitating their resolution, normalizing matters, and building trust by honoring commitments.
3. Norming
Features of Norming include purpose and goals are well-understood, more confident, improved commitment, members are engaged and supportive, relief (lowered anxiety), and developing cohesion.
Strategies for this phase include recognizing individual and team efforts, providing learning opportunities and feedback, and monitoring the ‘energy’ of the team.
4. Performing
Characteristics of Performing include high motivation, trust, and empathy; individuals defer to team needs; effectively producing deliverables; consistent performance; and demonstrations of interdependence and self-management.
Strategies for this phase include ‘guiding from the side’ (minimal intervention), celebrating successes, and encouraging collective decision-making and problem-solving.
5. Adjourning
Typical traits of Adjourning (also referred to as Transitioning or Mourning) include potential sadness, recognition of team and individual efforts, and disbanding.
Strategies for this phase include recognizing change, providing an opportunity for summative team evaluations ('lessons learned'), providing an opportunity for individual acknowledgments, and celebrating the team’s accomplishments — which may involve a party and possibly an after-party.

As shown, performance fluctuates as teams move through the phases. Review the characteristics to help identify the team's current phase, then apply the corresponding proven strategies to help them advance.

Permission Requests and Downloadable High-Resolution Versions of 'Phases of Team Development' Illustration
To request permission to use the 'Phases of Team Development' visual, contact Scott M. Graffius. If approved, high resolution JPG and PNG image files will be provided, subject to terms and conditions.
Citation: Graffius, Scott M. (2022). Phases of Team Development. Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.13140/RG.2.2.19112.85766. DOI link: https://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.19112.85766.

Bibliography
Select (partial) list of publications
- Alford, J. (2019, April 11). Our Co-Production Journey: From Sandpits to Bird Boxes. London, United Kingdom: Imperial College London.
- Bennett, M., Gadlin, H., & Marchand, C. (2018). Collaboration Team Science: Field Guide. Rockville, MD: National Institutes of Health.
- Couture, N. (2016, October 27). A Note About Teams. CIO. Boston, MA: International Data Group (IDG).
- Daly, L. (2002). Identify Your Project Management Team’s Level of Development and Facilitate It to Success. Paper presented at Project Management Institute Annual Seminars and Symposium, San Antonio, TX. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
- Deloitte (2017). Digital Era Technology Operating Models, Volume 2. New York, NY: Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited.
- Finkelstein, S. (2017, October 29). Why Companies Should Hire Teams, Not Individuals. The Wall Street Journal. New York, NY: The Wall Street Journal.
- Forbes (2018, April 23). How to Fast-Track Any Team to Success. Forbes. New York, NY: Forbes.
- Forbes (2012, October 27). How the iPad Mini is Defining Tim Cook’s Apple. Forbes. New York, NY: Forbes.
- Glover, P. (2012, March 13). Team Conflict: Why It’s a Good Thing. Fast Company. New York, NY: Mansueto Ventures.
- Graffius, Scott M. (2021). Phases of Team Development. Los Angeles, CA: Scott M. Graffius. Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.13140/RG.2.2.22040.42246.
- Jovanovic, M., Mesquida, A., Radaković, N., & Mas, A. (2016). Agile Retrospective Games for Different Team Development Phases. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 22: 1489-1508.
- Kane, G. C. (2014, October 7). Why Your Company is Probably Measuring Social Media Wrong. MIT Sloan Management Review. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan Management Review.
- KPMG (2017). The Digital Fund, Season 2. Amstelveen, Netherlands: KPMG International.
- Madden, D. (2019, May 19). The Four Stages of Building a Great Team – and the One Where Things Usually Go Wrong. Inc. Magazine. New York, NY: Inc. Magazine.
- Makar, A. (2011, July 13). Lessons Learned in Norming and Performing Team Development Phases. Louisville, KY: TechRepublic.
- Martinuzzi, B. (2012, June 8). Six Tips Guaranteed to Reduce Workplace Frustrations. New York, NY: American Express Company.
- Microsoft (2019, June 15). Is the Latest Technology the Key to Your Team’s Success, or is There Something Else? Microsoft Developer Support. Accessed at: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/premier-developer/is-the-latest-technology-the-key-to-your-teams-success-or-is-there-something-else. Redmond, WA: Microsoft.
- Mocko, G., & Linnerud, B. (2016). Measuring the Effects of Goal Alignment on Innovative Engineering Design Projects. International Journal of Engineering Education, 32: 55-63.
- Romanelli, M. (2019, September 11). Teamwork Accelerated. PM Times. Newmarket, Ontario, Canada: Macgregor Communications.
- Riggs, A. (2020, October 15). Why I Start All My Video Meetings with Collaborative Games (Spoiler: It’s Not Boredom). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: The Next Web (TNW).
- Rowley, D., & Lange, M. (2007). Forming to Performing: The Evolution of an Agile Team. IEEE Computer Society Proceedings. Agile 2007, 1: 408-414.
- Scrum Alliance (2020). Learning Objectives Examples. Denver, CO: Scrum Alliance.
- Sakpal, M. (2020, March 3. Learn How to Debunk These Five Restructuring Myths. Stamford, CT: Gartner, Inc.
- Stern, S. (2018, September 26). Is Your Team Working the Rory Underwood Way? Financial Times. London, United Kingdom: The Financial Times, a Nikkei Company.
- Telford, R. (2013, June 4). This is Where It Gets Interesting. Armonk, NY: International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation.
- Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental Sequence in Small Groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63: 384-399.
- Tuckman, B. W., & Jensen, M. A. C. (1977). Stages of Small-Group Development Revisited. Group and Organizational Studies, 2 (4): 419-427.
- United States Army (2015). Innovative Learning: A Key to National Security. Washington, DC: United States Army.


About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, multi award-winning author, and international speaker. He has generated over 1.75 billion dollars of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the CEO and Principal Consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™. His expertise spans project, program, portfolio, and PMO leadership inclusive of agile, traditional, and hybrid approaches. Content from his books, workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, professional associations, governments, and universities including Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Gartner, Deloitte, Project Management Institute, IEEE, SANS Institute, U.S. Soccer Federation, English Institute of Sport, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Wrike, Bayer, National Academy of Sciences, United States Department of Energy, United States Army, New Zealand Ministry of Education, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Waterloo, National University of Ireland Galway, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, and others. Graffius has spoken at 67 conferences and other events around the world, including Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States. Thinkers360 named Graffius a global top thought leader and influencer in four domains: Agile, Change Management, Digital Transformation, and GovTech.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
- Implement and use the most popular agile framework―Scrum;
- Deliver products in short cycles with rapid adaptation to change, fast time-to-market, and continuous improvement; and
- Support innovation and drive competitive advantage.
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇭🇺 Hungary
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇮🇱 Israel
- 🇮🇹 Italy
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇳🇴 Norway
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 UAE
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇦🇺 Australia
- 🇦🇹 Austria
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

This story was simultaneously published here and at:
The short URL for this article is: https://bit.ly/teams-2022
© Copyright 2022 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.

'Phases of Team Development' by Scott M. Graffius Featured by Hasso Plattner Institute
01 October 2022
BY SCOTT M. GRAFFIUS | ScottGraffius.com

Click here to download this article as a PDF.
The Hasso Plattner Institute (Hasso-Plattner-Institut für Digital Engineering GmbH), abbreviated HPI, a German information technology institute and faculty of the University of Potsdam, featured content by Scott M. Graffius — Graffius, Scott M. (2021). Phases of Team Development. Los Angeles, California: Scott M. Graffius. Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.13140/RG.2.2.22040.42246. — in HPI’s presentation, Scalable Software Engineering (WS 2021/22).
The now-current 2022 version of the Phases of Team Development visual is here.

About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, multi award-winning author, and international keynote speaker. He has generated over $1.75 billion of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the CEO and Principal Consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™. Content from his books (Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions and Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change), workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, professional associations, governments, and universities. Examples include Microsoft, Oracle, Broadcom, Cisco, Gartner, Deloitte, EY, Project Management Institute, IEEE, SANS Institute, U.S. Soccer Federation, English Institute of Sport, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Wrike, National Academy of Sciences, United States Department of Energy, United States Army, United States National Park Service, New Zealand Ministry of Education, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Warsaw University of Technology, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, and others. Graffius has delighted audiences with talks and workshops on technology leadership and agile project, program, portfolio, and PMO management at 82 conferences and other events across 24 countries.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.

The short URL for this article is: https://bit.ly/hpi-2022
© Copyright 2022 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.


Click here to download this article as a PDF.
The Hasso Plattner Institute (Hasso-Plattner-Institut für Digital Engineering GmbH), abbreviated HPI, a German information technology institute and faculty of the University of Potsdam, featured content by Scott M. Graffius — Graffius, Scott M. (2021). Phases of Team Development. Los Angeles, California: Scott M. Graffius. Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.13140/RG.2.2.22040.42246. — in HPI’s presentation, Scalable Software Engineering (WS 2021/22).
The now-current 2022 version of the Phases of Team Development visual is here.

About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, multi award-winning author, and international keynote speaker. He has generated over $1.75 billion of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the CEO and Principal Consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™. Content from his books (Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions and Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change), workshops, speaking engagements, and more have been featured and used by businesses, professional associations, governments, and universities. Examples include Microsoft, Oracle, Broadcom, Cisco, Gartner, Deloitte, EY, Project Management Institute, IEEE, SANS Institute, U.S. Soccer Federation, English Institute of Sport, Ford, Qantas, Atlassian, Wrike, National Academy of Sciences, United States Department of Energy, United States Army, United States National Park Service, New Zealand Ministry of Education, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Tufts University, Texas A&M University, Warsaw University of Technology, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, and others. Graffius has delighted audiences with talks and workshops on technology leadership and agile project, program, portfolio, and PMO management at 82 conferences and other events across 24 countries.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
- Implement and use the most popular agile framework―Scrum;
- Deliver products in short cycles with rapid adaptation to change, fast time-to-market, and continuous improvement; and
- Support innovation and drive competitive advantage.
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇭🇺 Hungary
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇮🇱 Israel
- 🇮🇹 Italy
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇳🇴 Norway
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 UAE
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇦🇺 Australia
- 🇦🇹 Austria
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

The short URL for this article is: https://bit.ly/hpi-2022
© Copyright 2022 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.

Use the Phases of Team Development (Based on Bruce W. Tuckman's Model of Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning) to Help Teams Grow and Advance: 2023 Update
09 January 2023
BY SCOTT M. GRAFFIUS | ScottGraffius.com

Click here to download this article as a PDF.
For permission requests and high resolution versions of the Phases of Team Development image, see below.
2023 Update
In 2008, Scott M. Graffius started developing material on advancing teams’ happiness, productivity, and success. His respective Phases of Team Development content factors the work of Dr. Bruce W. Tuckman and Mary Ann C. Jensen; Graffius's experience, observation, and analysis; and research, recommendations, and coverage from additional sources (examples are listed below).
The Phases of Team Development highlights the performance level, characteristics, and proven strategies for each of the five phases: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. Project Managers, Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, DevOps Leads, and other leaders can apply the information to help handle challenges or issues experienced by teams. By doing so, they’ll advance the teams' (and their own) happiness, productivity, and success.
This article and the accompanying visual provides the updated 2023 version of the Phases of Team Development.

Five Phases of Team Development
1. Forming
Characteristics of Forming include displaying eagerness, socializing, generally polite tone, sticking to safe topics, unclear about how one fits in, and some anxiety and questioning.
Strategies for this phase include taking the ‘lead,’ being highly visible, facilitating introductions, providing the ‘big picture,’ establishing clear expectations, communicating success criteria, and ensuring response times are quick.
2. Storming
Traits of Storming include some resistance, lack of participation, conflict based on differences of opinions, competition, and high emotions.
Strategies for this phase include requesting and encouraging feedback, identifying issues and facilitating their resolution, normalizing matters, and building trust by honoring commitments.
3. Norming
Features of Norming include purpose and goals are well-understood, more confident, improved commitment, members are engaged and supportive, relief (lowered anxiety), and developing cohesion.
Strategies for this phase include recognizing individual and team efforts, providing learning opportunities and feedback, and monitoring the ‘energy’ of the team.
4. Performing
Characteristics of Performing include high motivation, trust, and empathy; individuals defer to team needs; effectively producing deliverables; consistent performance; and demonstrations of interdependence and self-management.
Strategies for this phase include ‘guiding from the side’ (minimal intervention), celebrating successes, and encouraging collective decision-making and problem-solving.
5. Adjourning
Typical traits of Adjourning (also referred to as Transitioning or Mourning) include potential sadness, recognition of team and individual efforts, and disbanding.
Strategies for this phase include recognizing change, providing an opportunity for summative team evaluations ('lessons learned'), providing an opportunity for individual acknowledgments, and celebrating the team’s accomplishments — which may involve a party and possibly an after-party.


Select (partial) sources:
The Phases of Team Development by Scott M. Graffius factors the work of Dr. Bruce W. Tuckman and Mary Ann C. Jensen; Graffius's experience, observation, and analysis; and research, recommendations, and coverage from additional sources such as Google, Harvard Business Review, IEEE, MIT, Fast Company, NASA, Microsoft, TNW, Project Management Institute, Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, Gartner, CIO, RAND Corporation, Software Engineering Institute, University of Edinburgh, Cisco, KPMG, Warsaw University of Technology, Software Engineering Institute, DevOps Institute, American Express, SANS Institute, Zurich University, SAP, ViacomCBS, Oxford University, American Management Association, AT&T, University of Southern California, IBM, and many others.
Select (partial) bibliography:


How to cite this article:
Graffius, Scott M. (2023, January 9). Use the Phases of Team Development (Based on Bruce W. Tuckman's Model of Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning) to Help Teams Grow and Advance: 2023 Update. Available at: https://scottgraffius.com. Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.13140/RG.2.2.10720.35846. DOI link: https://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.10720.35846.


© Copyright 2023 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.
To request permission to use the Phases of Team Development content, contact Scott M. Graffius.
If a request is approved, terms and conditions will be provided along with—if applicable—downloadable high resolution versions of the Phases of Team Development image in JPG and PNG formats.

About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, multi award-winning author, and highly sought-after international keynote speaker. He has generated over $1.75 billion of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the CEO and Principal Consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™. Content from his books, talks, workshops, and more have been featured and used by businesses, professional associations, governments, and universities. Select examples include Microsoft, Oracle, Broadcom, Cisco, Gartner, Project Management Institute, IEEE, U.S. Soccer Federation, Qantas, National Academy of Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. National Park Service, New Zealand Ministry of Education, Yale University, Warsaw University of Technology, and others. Graffius has delighted audiences with dynamic and engaging talks and workshops on agile, project management, and technology leadership at 82 conferences and other events across 24 countries.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.

The short URL for this article is: https://bit.ly/teams-2023
© Copyright 2023 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.


Click here to download this article as a PDF.
For permission requests and high resolution versions of the Phases of Team Development image, see below.
2023 Update
In 2008, Scott M. Graffius started developing material on advancing teams’ happiness, productivity, and success. His respective Phases of Team Development content factors the work of Dr. Bruce W. Tuckman and Mary Ann C. Jensen; Graffius's experience, observation, and analysis; and research, recommendations, and coverage from additional sources (examples are listed below).
The Phases of Team Development highlights the performance level, characteristics, and proven strategies for each of the five phases: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. Project Managers, Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, DevOps Leads, and other leaders can apply the information to help handle challenges or issues experienced by teams. By doing so, they’ll advance the teams' (and their own) happiness, productivity, and success.
This article and the accompanying visual provides the updated 2023 version of the Phases of Team Development.

Five Phases of Team Development
1. Forming
Characteristics of Forming include displaying eagerness, socializing, generally polite tone, sticking to safe topics, unclear about how one fits in, and some anxiety and questioning.
Strategies for this phase include taking the ‘lead,’ being highly visible, facilitating introductions, providing the ‘big picture,’ establishing clear expectations, communicating success criteria, and ensuring response times are quick.
2. Storming
Traits of Storming include some resistance, lack of participation, conflict based on differences of opinions, competition, and high emotions.
Strategies for this phase include requesting and encouraging feedback, identifying issues and facilitating their resolution, normalizing matters, and building trust by honoring commitments.
3. Norming
Features of Norming include purpose and goals are well-understood, more confident, improved commitment, members are engaged and supportive, relief (lowered anxiety), and developing cohesion.
Strategies for this phase include recognizing individual and team efforts, providing learning opportunities and feedback, and monitoring the ‘energy’ of the team.
4. Performing
Characteristics of Performing include high motivation, trust, and empathy; individuals defer to team needs; effectively producing deliverables; consistent performance; and demonstrations of interdependence and self-management.
Strategies for this phase include ‘guiding from the side’ (minimal intervention), celebrating successes, and encouraging collective decision-making and problem-solving.
5. Adjourning
Typical traits of Adjourning (also referred to as Transitioning or Mourning) include potential sadness, recognition of team and individual efforts, and disbanding.
Strategies for this phase include recognizing change, providing an opportunity for summative team evaluations ('lessons learned'), providing an opportunity for individual acknowledgments, and celebrating the team’s accomplishments — which may involve a party and possibly an after-party.


Select (partial) sources:
The Phases of Team Development by Scott M. Graffius factors the work of Dr. Bruce W. Tuckman and Mary Ann C. Jensen; Graffius's experience, observation, and analysis; and research, recommendations, and coverage from additional sources such as Google, Harvard Business Review, IEEE, MIT, Fast Company, NASA, Microsoft, TNW, Project Management Institute, Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, Gartner, CIO, RAND Corporation, Software Engineering Institute, University of Edinburgh, Cisco, KPMG, Warsaw University of Technology, Software Engineering Institute, DevOps Institute, American Express, SANS Institute, Zurich University, SAP, ViacomCBS, Oxford University, American Management Association, AT&T, University of Southern California, IBM, and many others.
Select (partial) bibliography:
- Alford, J. (2019, April 11). Our Co-Production Journey: From Sandpits to Bird Boxes. London, United Kingdom: Imperial College London.
- Bennett, M., Gadlin, H., & Marchand, C. (2018). Collaboration Team Science: Field Guide. Rockville, MD: National Institutes of Health.
- Couture, N. (2016, October 27). A Note About Teams. CIO. Boston, MA: International Data Group (IDG).
- Daly, L. (2002). Identify Your Project Management Team’s Level of Development and Facilitate It to Success. Paper presented at Project Management Institute Annual Seminars and Symposium, San Antonio, TX. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
- Deloitte (2017). Digital Era Technology Operating Models, Volume 2. New York, NY: Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited.
- Finkelstein, S. (2017, October 29). Why Companies Should Hire Teams, Not Individuals. The Wall Street Journal. New York, NY: The Wall Street Journal.
- Forbes (2018, April 23). How to Fast-Track Any Team to Success. Forbes. New York, NY: Forbes.
- Forbes (2012, October 27). How the iPad Mini is Defining Tim Cook’s Apple. Forbes. New York, NY: Forbes.
- Glover, P. (2012, March 13). Team Conflict: Why It’s a Good Thing. Fast Company. New York, NY: Mansueto Ventures.
- Graffius, Scott M. (2021). Phases of Team Development. Los Angeles, CA: Scott M. Graffius. Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.13140/RG.2.2.22040.42246.
- Jovanovic, M., Mesquida, A., Radaković, N., & Mas, A. (2016). Agile Retrospective Games for Different Team Development Phases. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 22: 1489-1508.
- Kane, G. C. (2014, October 7). Why Your Company is Probably Measuring Social Media Wrong. MIT Sloan Management Review. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan Management Review.
- KPMG (2017). The Digital Fund, Season 2. Amstelveen, Netherlands: KPMG International.
- Madden, D. (2019, May 19). The Four Stages of Building a Great Team – and the One Where Things Usually Go Wrong. Inc. Magazine. New York, NY: Inc. Magazine.
- Makar, A. (2011, July 13). Lessons Learned in Norming and Performing Team Development Phases. Louisville, KY: TechRepublic.
- Martinuzzi, B. (2012, June 8). Six Tips Guaranteed to Reduce Workplace Frustrations. New York, NY: American Express Company.
- Microsoft (2019, June 15). Is the Latest Technology the Key to Your Team’s Success, or is There Something Else? Microsoft Developer Support. Accessed at: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/premier-developer/is-the-latest-technology-the-key-to-your-teams-success-or-is-there-something-else. Redmond, WA: Microsoft.
- Mocko, G., & Linnerud, B. (2016). Measuring the Effects of Goal Alignment on Innovative Engineering Design Projects. International Journal of Engineering Education, 32: 55-63.
- Romanelli, M. (2019, September 11). Teamwork Accelerated. PM Times. Newmarket, Ontario, Canada: Macgregor Communications.
- Riggs, A. (2020, October 15). Why I Start All My Video Meetings with Collaborative Games (Spoiler: It’s Not Boredom). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: The Next Web (TNW).
- Rowley, D., & Lange, M. (2007). Forming to Performing: The Evolution of an Agile Team. IEEE Computer Society Proceedings. Agile 2007, 1: 408-414.
- Scrum Alliance (2020). Learning Objectives Examples. Denver, CO: Scrum Alliance.
- Sakpal, M. (2020, March 3. Learn How to Debunk These Five Restructuring Myths. Stamford, CT: Gartner, Inc.
- Stern, S. (2018, September 26). Is Your Team Working the Rory Underwood Way? Financial Times. London, United Kingdom: The Financial Times, a Nikkei Company.
- Telford, R. (2013, June 4). This is Where It Gets Interesting. Armonk, NY: International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation.
- Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental Sequence in Small Groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63: 384-399.
- Tuckman, B. W., & Jensen, M. A. C. (1977). Stages of Small-Group Development Revisited. Group and Organizational Studies, 2 (4): 419-427.
- United States Army (2015). Innovative Learning: A Key to National Security. Washington, DC: United States Army.


How to cite this article:
Graffius, Scott M. (2023, January 9). Use the Phases of Team Development (Based on Bruce W. Tuckman's Model of Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning) to Help Teams Grow and Advance: 2023 Update. Available at: https://scottgraffius.com. Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.13140/RG.2.2.10720.35846. DOI link: https://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.10720.35846.


© Copyright 2023 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.
To request permission to use the Phases of Team Development content, contact Scott M. Graffius.
If a request is approved, terms and conditions will be provided along with—if applicable—downloadable high resolution versions of the Phases of Team Development image in JPG and PNG formats.

About Scott M. Graffius

Scott M. Graffius, PMP, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSM, CSPO, SFE, ITIL, LSSGB is an agile project management practitioner, consultant, multi award-winning author, and highly sought-after international keynote speaker. He has generated over $1.75 billion of business value in aggregate for the organizations he has served. Graffius is the CEO and Principal Consultant at Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions™ and subsidiary Exceptional Agility™. Content from his books, talks, workshops, and more have been featured and used by businesses, professional associations, governments, and universities. Select examples include Microsoft, Oracle, Broadcom, Cisco, Gartner, Project Management Institute, IEEE, U.S. Soccer Federation, Qantas, National Academy of Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. National Park Service, New Zealand Ministry of Education, Yale University, Warsaw University of Technology, and others. Graffius has delighted audiences with dynamic and engaging talks and workshops on agile, project management, and technology leadership at 82 conferences and other events across 24 countries.
His full bio is available here.
Connect with Scott on:


About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
- Implement and use the most popular agile framework―Scrum;
- Deliver products in short cycles with rapid adaptation to change, fast time-to-market, and continuous improvement; and
- Support innovation and drive competitive advantage.
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇭🇺 Hungary
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇮🇱 Israel
- 🇮🇹 Italy
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇳🇴 Norway
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 UAE
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change

Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle in the United States and around the world. Some links by country follow.
- 🇦🇺 Australia
- 🇦🇹 Austria
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States

The short URL for this article is: https://bit.ly/teams-2023
© Copyright 2023 Scott M. Graffius. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius.
